Gray Wolf learned to have a howling good time
The smile of Rockies pitcher Jon Gray is so bright it can kill coronavirus doom and gloom on contact. He’s known as the Gray Wolf. During summer camp at Coors Field, where COVID-19 precautions keep the media at the safe distance of a video conference from players, Gray was recently serenaded with bay-at-the-moon howling by MLB.com reporter Thomas Harding to lighten the mood during a recent interview.
And it cracked Gray up.
Baseball is a game. This should be fun. Right?
In these uncertain, often-disconcerting times to be a pro athlete, a die-hard sports fan or merely a human being trying to get through another tough day, this happy Gray Wolf is about the best thing I’ve seen in sports all year.
For one day, let’s skip bad news on the door step. We need a break from that COVID cloud that follows us around. So pardon me while I try to explain why the joy Gray brings to ballpark makes me grin.
More than 135,000 deaths in the United States linked to coronavirus is a tragedy that threatens to consume our lives. Nothing is spared, including sports, which we always counted on as a place to happily lose ourselves in the next great play, the next frivolous debate or the next big game.
So on a summer day when I could tell you to start fretting about when his recovery from COVID-19 will let Charlie Blackmon back in the Rockies lineup, or issue a warning the CU Buffs football game at Colorado State probably isn’t happening this September, do you mind if we talk about how much Gray has grown as a pitcher and as a man during the past two years?
“I’m glad you asked that question,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “I think Jon’s in a really good spot.”
To my reading, Gray’s evolution is one of the more fascinating stories in Denver sports. Not long after the former firstround draft choice broke into the major
leagues in 2015, it became apparent his story would be written in all caps. Big slider. Big hair. Big head case. Big drama.
The Gray Wolf could strike out 16 batters in a regular-season game against San Diego or implode during a play-in game at Arizona. After we squirmed uncomfortably watching Gray melt down on the mound during an 11-8 loss to the Diamondbacks in the 2017 postseason, Gray analyzed his angst in the clubhouse like a client on a psychiatrist’s couch. “I got outside myself,” he confessed that sad evening. “It stinks …”
His 43 victories already ranks Gray seventh all-time for a franchise that lives at 5,280 feet. But on an October afternoon in
2018, when Gray was left off the team’s playoff roster in Milwaukee, I spied a pitcher so disappointed in the visiting clubhouse that I wondered if he would ever fully recover.
So one of the sweetest little stories in Denver sports of recent months is not only how Gray reconstructed his approach to the pitching, but also put his smile back together again.
“It’s the growth of a young man, who from the time he was drafted until now, there were some bumps in the road. Selfadmitted. I think Jon has been open and honest with the media. And open and honest with us,” Black said. “Not that I’m going to share everything we’ve talked about and all the things he’s been through, but it’s been the growth of a player.”
From the moment Gray entered the big leagues, I got an immediate, troubling vibe: Rather than rearing back and bringing heat to get the next batter out, he labored and sweated way too hard to become the ace that would fulfill the big expectations of his teammates and his family.
So maybe those meltdowns on the mound weren’t so unexpected. Painting the black with heavy traffic on the bases was way too difficult while lugging around all that added weight on Gray’s shoulders.
For anybody who pitches for a living, Coors Field is an intimidating beast. But rather than shrink from the beast, Gray has not only learned to live with the monster, but attack it.
“The first three years (with the Rockies), when I was throwing the fastball, I was getting hammered with home runs. I felt like I was giving up home runs left and right. I could almost see or feel every time I was about to give up a home run,” Gray said.
What changed? Gray started challenging hitters by throwing high heat. Daring them to swing. “They knew I was coming at them. They knew I was coming to attack the strike zone and weren’t going to sit back to wait and see what the count was or what the pitch was,” Gray said. “I was coming for them.”
Needless walks decreased. His tension abated. His fear of surrendering homers vanished. Gray began to believe he could dictate a swing and miss. “It seems like results were a lot better when I had it in my mind I was going to blow this guy away,” he said.
The Rockies are 150-to-1 long shots to win the World Series in this virus-shortened season.
But one reason to believe there’s a chance Colorado could steal a playoff berth is because Gray has grown comfortable not only in his role, but in his own skin.
I can’t tell you if Gray, who won 11 games last season on the strength of a very respectable 3.46 ERA in his starts at altitude, can ever become a bona fide No. 1 starter.
But from all evidence, I’m pretty confident that at age 28, Jon Gray finally likes being Jon Gray.
And that’s good stuff.